NF BBC Dream Builders Transcript

8/13/2019 NF BBC Dream Builders Transcript

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Express Building, which was a modern building, just about doit in a lunch hour and then I did two years national service.

Razia Iqbal: But before we get onto the national service, because thatobviously made a huge impact on you, in terms of flying, and

Im going to ask you about that in a moment.

Norman Foster: No, I never got involved in flying in the RAF. I was a radartechnician, trying to find escape routes out of going back tosomething that I was obviously not suited for. I got into anarchitectural practice more by pretence than anything else,trading on the administrative background at the Town Hall,but that was after national service.

Razia Iqbal: And what were you doing inside that architectural practice?What did they allow you to do?

Norman Foster: I found myself in this o#ce being an assistant to the contractsmanager. We would go around building sites and lift up manholes and find that there was nothing underneath them and Iplucked up courage to eventually talk to one of the architectsin the drafting room and it was the youngest. He was studyingpart time at the art college down the road, and I said, what doyou think of Frank Lloyd Wright and he looked at me and said:is he at the art college too? And I think that that was acritical moment. Suddenly, the idea that I might know moreabout architecture, and this guy wore the white coat, so allthe people in the drafting room wore the white coat. So I said

to him: how do you become an architect? Well, you know,you have to have a portfolio or drawings, and where do yougo? Well, go to the college of art, where I go or go to theuniversity. So I would take drawings from the o#ce, copythem, I would also start painting, I was inspired by Lowry, theartist and so I thought, well, before I go to the college of artor the university, I should at least let the boss know.

So I knocked on the door of John E Beardshaw and I said: Ijust wanted to tell you, before I made the move, that Imthinking about trying to get into a place and studyarchitecture. So he said: how can you do that, you havent

got a portfolio? So I said, yes, Ive got a portfolio, Ive got itat home. How do you get a portfolio? So I said, well, I takedrawings home, Im the last to leave the o#ce and Im thefirst in the o#ce and I copy them and I made some of myown. So he said, bring them to me tomorrow, and he said,youre a square peg in a round hole, Ive got a place for you.So he gave me a white coat, gave me a book of standards,which told you the width of a door and how you drew astaircase, and then it got a little bit more interesting and a bitmore complicated when I went to university. And I worked thevacations, I worked the evenings, I worked overnight and

earned money to pay my way through university and then of

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course I got to the United States and found everybody else didit, it was no big deal.

Razia Iqbal: Lets talk about the flying, because its clearly a really big partof what influences you, what makes you think about the kind

of buildings that you imagine. I want you just to talk usthrough that very specific influence.

Norman Foster: I remember being on Dunstable Downs with a family picnicand looking across and seeing these sail planes and I thoughtthose are just the most beautiful craft Ive ever seen. I mean

just extraordinary. Extraordinarily moving to see thesebeautiful craft flying quickly, circling, climbing with noengines. So I went down to the gliding site and had ademonstration of flight and I was totally hooked. And over theyears I went from sail planes, from racing sail planes tohelicopters to single engine to multi-engine. I got an

instrument rating so I could fly the airways. Ive flown historicaircraft, Ive

Razia Iqbal: In fact you once counted, you once counted that you hadflown 75 di"erent aircraft, that you had personally piloted.

Just, I feel like I havent really had a sense from you aboutwhat it feels like to be a pilot? What that means to you inconnection with your imagining of buildings?

Norman Foster: Well I think that di"erent emotions with, the relationship witha sail plane is very di"erent and in some ways its almost like

flying a fighter, its very, very responsive and the work load isextraordinarily high. I mean you see it from below, but tonavigate to the weather patterns, to be able to fly fast throughsync and find rising air. Its a very poetic experience and its avery extraordinary man/machine relationship. That, I think istrue of any aircraft but there is an extraordinary, almostethereal quality. I think that flight changed the way thatheight, ascending the Ei"el Tower and flight, changed the waythat artists saw the world. You have a perspective where youreally see the beauty of the planet, I mean its incrediblymoving. You might be moved by mountains, by lakes and soon, but when you look down from a distance you see the

extraordinary beauty and you see the horrors. You see themindless waste of space, you see the sprawl which fromabove looks uglier than the reality might seem, and somehowthere is more compact settlements of those buildings thatwork with nature, they seem so much more natural fromthere.

So its very revealing, I think its very insightful, its verypoetic and it is this incredible gravity defying experience, thefact that if it stops, it falls out of the sky and you can nevermake a comparison with any other form of mobility. You can

always pull the car over and get out of the car if youre

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unhappy, you can always get o"the bike, but if you dontland the aircraft, thats it.

Razia Iqbal: Well lets talk about another major influence on you. You wona fellowship at Yale and there you met your early collaborator,

Richard Rogers. So tell us how much that Americanexperience a"ected the buildings that you started to createwith Richard Rogers and others.

Norman Foster: I think it was totally transforming, this feeling of incredibleoptimism can do spirit. It was a great period in America, itwas an extraordinary period, I mean I still get a tremendouscharge from America, I love it in all kinds of ways. But all thepeople that you might read about were actually there anddoing it, so you could go to Chicago and theres Mies in theo#ce. Go to

Razia Iqbal: Mies van de Rohe?

Norman Foster: Mies van de Rohe. Go to Pennsylvania and theres Lou Kahn,and you visit the Frank Lloyd Wright houses. Coming back tothe realisation that there was a pride in work and real can doqualities and that, in some ways, came out. I mean somethingthat was a bit of joke between Richard, Eldred and myself wasthat as Europeans, we had a tendency to debate and argue. Atone point I think that our American colleagues in the class gota bit exasperated and put a notice up which said somethinglike, stop talking, start drawing and we ended up putting a

notice on our side saying, start thinking. But it was a greatcombination because there were three key individuals, so itwas a great time.

Razia Iqbal: Well lets talk about another major influence on you, the greatmentor of those early years and someone whose ideas stillhave a huge influence on your work is the eccentricfuturologist, Buckminster Fuller, the inventor of the geodesicdome. What did you take from your meetings with Bucky?

Norman Foster: We worked together for the last 12 years of his life and I thinkthat he was an extraordinary conscience, in the sense that he

was the first, I think, to identify the fragility of the planet. Hewas an extraordinary individual with a great grasp of threedimensional form, belief in the way in which technology couldbe harnessed and that there was no need for people to su"er,to be deprived, that we had the intelligence. So he was anincredible optimist and of course a philosophy that was aboutperformance, and in a way he predicted so many of the thingsthat we now take for granted. I mean he was forever going onabout the power of miniaturisation, the ability to do morewith less. He would draw comparisons with the earlier age ofvast tonnage of copper cabling across the oceans and the way

in which a satellite had transformed that. But he never lived,of course, to see the revolution, which we take for granted, in

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terms of the computing capacity and communicating ability,which we take for granted. But in a way, he anticipated that,and he was an incredible individual. He was expelled twicefrom Harvard and was finally honoured with a chair in poetry.

Razia Iqbal:

Let me ask you about a particular incident. When you finishedthe Sainsbury Centre, which was an art museum and arthistory centre, for which you won the RIBA Prize in 1979. Its abig part of my life, the Sainsburys Centre, because I was astudent at the University of East Anglia. You flew over this sitewith Buckminster Fuller and he asked you a very surprisingand now quite famous question. Tell us what that was.

Norman Foster: How much does your building weigh Norman? Well whathappened is that I flew him down in the helicopter and welanded on the lawn and we walked in through theconservatory windows into the caf and he just strode right

up to a glass display case and there was this tiny Eskimocarving and he said, my, look how well this little fellow sits inthis space. And then he went on about scale and then wewalked the length of the building, we walked through therestaurant, we walked outside, we walked around thebuilding, that took rather a long time, it probably took aboutan hour. We came back into the restaurant and then he said:and how much does it weigh then? And I said, what? Thebuilding, how much does it weigh? Do you know how much itweighs? I mean its very, very important.

Razia Iqbal: You didnt know, did you?

Norman Foster: No, of course I didnt know. So after his visit I sat down andgot kind of a group around me and said: how much does thebuilding weigh? And they looked at me as if I was mad. And Isaid, no, Im really serious, weve got to find out. I mean, findout.

Razia Iqbal: Why? Why is it significant?

Norman Foster: Why is it significant? Well, the analysis indicated thatsomething like 8% of the volume was in the basement and

92% was in the main part of the building above. The basementwas out of sight, out of mind. Although it was only 8% of thevolume, it was four times the weight and going through it, itwas twice the unit cost of the space above and we discoveredthat really, thats where all the joy was, thats where theaction was, thats the museum. Nobody is really interested inthe basement, theres no light there, its just storage space.So an incredible realisation about the relationship betweenweight, volume, joy and value for money.

Razia Iqbal: Lets have some questions now from the audience. This is

Dream Builders from the BBC World Service. Im talking to thearchitect Norman Foster, at the Royal Institute of British

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Architects in London. In a moment well be discussing howNorman Foster reinvented high-rise buildings, airports andpioneered new ways of modernising old buildings. But now,who would like to ask a question on what weve beendiscussing so far, Norman Fosters influences and early years

as an architect? The gentleman right at the front?

Question 1: Hi, Im Salvador Rivas. As a source of inspiration and influenceto many of us, what would be your advice for young architectsin these challenging times?

Norman Foster: I think that its a very interesting question you study hard,you graduate and then how do you find a job? I think thatthats genuinely tough, but the situation is cyclical and thereality globally is that there is a global shortage of architectsand engineers, and for me the action was, in America, as Idescribed, as a youth. The action is in many other places at

the moment. In other words, if you go to China, if you go toMalaysia, if you go to Latin America, its a di"erentenvironment. So I think that if youre really passionate aboutseeking the action, then I think you go where the action is.And theres lots of action and theres lots of excitement.

Razia Iqbal: Can we have another question? One right at the back, I think ahand went up?

Question 2: Hello, my name is Abid, Im an architect working in London.You talked about your initial influences, things that inspired

you towards the beginning of your career as an architect.What is it that inspires you now?

Norman Foster: What inspires me now? The same things, interestingly, thatinspired me when I was a student, and at any time in my life.Im inspired by anything thats really well done. And thatmight have an architects name on it or not it might be ananonymous building. But Im inspired by design, Im inspiredby architecture, Im inspired by art, Im inspired by sculpture,by paintings, on a fairly selective view of that. Im inspired bydesign in the wider aspects, aircraft, cars, locomotives, Iminspired by anything that commands respect by virtue of its

excellence it could be a very, very simple thing.

Razia Iqbal: You said to one of the people asking you a question thatyoung architects or architecture students should think aboutgoing where the action is. Lets widen where your work hasbeen seen. Your first big international commission was theHongkong and Shanghai Bank in 1979. Youd never built abank, in fact youd never built anything taller than fourstoreys, but what you proposed was a prefabricated structure,dominated by a cathedral-like void inside and a sun scoopand mirrors outside, to bring in natural sunlight deep into the

interior. You put a huge amount into winning thatcompetition, but it was the most extraordinary risk, wasnt it?

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Norman Foster: It was a high risk. We were finishing projects, we had no newprojects coming in, the fee on a typical project is front loaded,so wed virtually spent the money in the early phases and wehad these buildings which needed finishing and needed

funding to finish them. And yes, we were, if we hadnt havewon that building, maybe we wouldnt be having thisconversation yes, it was quite a gamble.

Razia Iqbal: Tell me about the self-belief that made you think, I can winthis?

Norman Foster: I think if you really are passionate about something and youreally go for it, then you commit everything, you dontcompromise, you just go all out. And I dont have anyrationalisations around that and I probably wasnt ascalculating as it might seem, to talk about it.

Razia Iqbal: Why do you think you won? What was it about it thatcompelled them to commission you?

Norman Foster: I think that it might have had something to do with the factthat travelling from anywhere to Hong Kong at that time was,in 1979, was quite an experience. It was a full 24-hour trip bythe time the aircraft has stopped for fuel and so on, and wewere invited to the briefing at the bank, along with the otherarchitects competing for the project and, like everybody else,having gone so far, we said, you know, well go and look

around the region. So we bought a kind of inclusive ticket andafter the briefing, got so engaged with this project that we didall kinds of things, as a small team. Wed been told not toworry about feng shui and that the bank would take care of it.So the first thing I did was commission a feng shui specialistand paid for the advice and the drawing.

The second thing is we cancelled our travel trips, justcancelled it everybody else left and we stayed on. And Iwanted to know, you know, how the banking hall worked, so Iwas talking to the bankers and they said: but you know, whydo you want to know? If youre asking all these questions and

were giving you the answers, then we should share that withthe other architects, shouldnt we? And I said, no, I thinkthats outrageous. I mean, whats the point of hanging onhere if were? So there was a certain sort of chemistry andthen I think that feeding all that back and totally questioningthe idea of a high rise building, before then, every high risebuilding had a central core, so imagine its like a kebab. Youhave the rod down the centre which are the elevators, thelifts, you know, all the machinery and stu"and then you havea strip of space like the meat around the edge and if you siton the edge you get a great view, if youre not on the edge,

then its bad luck. So the idea of taking the core, fragmentingit, and putting it at the ends, so that you essentially have

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open, flexible space was, nobody had. I think that, perhapsthey had the advice of a very wise individual, Gordon Graham,an absolutely remarkable man, who was advising them andthese bankers who didnt profess to be architects, I think thatthey saw a lot of the logic and anyway, through that process

we ended up as the winners.

Razia Iqbal: Well if the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank was one newdeparture for high-rise buildings, the St Mary Axe building inLondon, or the Gherkin, as its known locally, is quiteanother. You dont seem to be happy with the way otherpeople build skyscrapers. Can you explain the break that theGherkin made with high rise design of the past?

Norman Foster: Thats a kind of evolution. You design buildings, some dontget built, but you learn a lot from them and there was theMillennium Tower, the tallest building in the world

conjectured with a group of Japanese engineers a veryserious project, 800 metres high, it never got built. But welearnt a tremendous amount from that, and then there wasthe Climatro#ce, with Bucky Fuller, which looked at the ideaof taking a kind of garden, with its own micro-climate, wherethe ecology of the planting would work with air movementthrough the building, and Birkin Haward at the time did somerather beautiful drawings of that, very poetic. And then webuilt the Commerzbank, and the Commerzbank is the firstbuilding that is a green high rise building and which uses ahigh degree of

Razia Iqbal: This is the bank in Frankfurt?

Norman Foster: Thats in Frankfurt.

Razia Iqbal: And when was that?

Norman Foster: So that was about ten years before Swiss Re or the Gherkin.

Razia Iqbal: Do you like that name? Do you?

Norman Foster: I think its great, yes. And I love the fact that it was a hostile

jibe at the building and that its been adopted in a kind ofendearing way, and the building I think has become a symbolfor all kinds of ventures and so on. It had, at times, anextremely hostile press, but I think as its become somethingthat is very much of the skyline, I dont think its somethingthat we could have done instantly. There was very much abuild-up of experience.

Razia Iqbal: Lets look at the commonalities with these high-risebuildings, because sustainability is one thing that is commonto the buildings, and youve written about this, the way in

which buildings consume almost half the energy we generatein the industrial world. Given this concern of yours to do more

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with less, which is something that you inherited from BuckyFuller, to use recycled materials, to cut down on airconditioning and to have buildings generate their own power isnt it a little bit ironic that one of the areas that you havemade very much your own is in airport design? Because

burning fossil fuels and causing pollution and depletingnatural resources, that all comes from people flying all overthe world.

Norman Foster: Yes, I mean the energy consumption, I dont have thestatistics for the carbon generated by air travel, but I thinkyoull find it will pale then to absolute insignificance againstthe other factors of buildings and the movement betweenbuildings. I mean that is a major element and its also atruism that 747s are now being phased out because they aregas guzzling, theyre not a"ordable, they consume too muchfuel, theyre noisy. So I think were seeing an evolution, a

process. But its a connected world, its a mobile world, itsnot going to go away the airport is a fact of life. So thechallenge is to use those as opportunities for regeneration, tobuild them responsibly and to see them holistically as part ofa wider network of infrastructure. For example, the ThamesHub project has been dubbed the Thames Hub project but theairport hub was only one component of a much biggerpicture, it was about connectivity.

It was looking about mobility, a big driver was eliminating thegap between the rich south and the poorer north by bringing

opportunities, by reducing congestion and by making thenation safer, in the sense that you wouldnt be over flying.Very, very few cities are over flown in the way that London is.So buildings individually are important, but also the totality ofinfrastructure something like 70% of the energy anindustrialised society is consumed by buildings and themovement of people and goods between those buildings.

Razia Iqbal: Lets move to looking at how things are done di"erently indi"erent parts of the world. Terminal Three of BeijingsAirport is the largest building in the world, yet it was built in

just four years and there was a workforce of 50,000 people

and at one point there were 100 tower cranes on the site.Compare that with Heathrows Terminal Five. It took 19 yearsfrom conception to completion. Do you think that Europe,Europeans and Americans can learn from how things are donein Asia and the Middle East?

Norman Foster: Yes, I think there are a lot of misunderstandings, a lot ofmisconceptions. Beijing is 1.3 million square metres Heathrow in its entirety, with five terminals, is just over900,000 square metres. So Beijing, as a building, is biggerthan all five terminals in Heathrow. You take Terminal Five,

from the published data that is 375,000 square metres, soBeijing is one million square metres bigger. Now, its very

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popular to say, oh well, it took a long time but we are ademocratic society, were not a one party system, we havetrade unions, we have planning procedures and enquiries, andthat is a fair price to pay for things taking longer. But if youanalyse it, I think youll find that it wasnt 19 years, it was 20

years and if you compare: take the longest planning enquiryin the history of planning enquiries, it took four years, andthen the planning process took two years, thats six years. Sotake six years from 20 years and you get 14 years.

Youre comparing 14 years here with four years there: youvetaken out the democratic process, youve taken out the plan,so that comes down to decision making, it comes down tohaving a very, very clear idea of objectives and getting on withit. And that is, in the spirit of our forebears in the 19thcentury, who created an infrastructural heritage that werestill existing on, its squeaking and wobbling. You know, the

earlier question about go where the action is, go where theexcitement is, go where its happening there are veryimportant lessons to learn from that.

Razia Iqbal: Well, so what are these important lessons?

Norman Foster: I think the lessons have to be political lessons. I mean in theend, the decision making about major infrastructure is apolitical decision.

Razia Iqbal: I mean it is extraordinary when you think about the 50,000

workers who built that airport, they were working three shiftsaround the clock, 24/7 and thats what made it possible.

Norman Foster: Yes, well no, its not. Because even if you say conceiving andbuilding the building was four years, there was six yearsconstruction. Now, okay, lets add that together, six yearsconstruction, four years enquiry 10 two years planning 12 youve still got eight years to account for, thats themisconception. Its not about cheap labour, its not about aone party system, its not about throwing a lot of people onthe job and actually, its more di#cult to manage, organiseand co-ordinate 50,000 people than

Razia Iqbal: No, sure, but you know, you know that.

Norman Foster: And youre comparing a building of 1.3 million square feetwith something which is 0.3 million.

Razia Iqbal: But when you talk about it as being a political decision, that ifyoure looking at architecture and design and planning insocieties as being political decisions, you, in your time, havehad access to politicians, what would you say to politicians inthe western world in terms of what lessons youve learned

from building in Asia?

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Norman Foster: I dont know, maybe theres certain inevitability in terms ofthe fact that when you have a very comfortable lifestyle, youhave less appetite for change. Maybe in those economieswhich are hungry for change and hungry for progress, there isthe same impatience that there was, and the same

relationship between improving the quality of life. But I thinkits also about a philosophical issue of caring for futuregenerations that is a powerful driving force in thoseeconomies, and it should be a powerful driving force here.Because we should care for future generations in the way thatthe people in the past cared for us, and provided for us, and ifwere not investing in our future and we dont have a belief infuture generations, then thats a philosophical/political issue.Because the architect, in the end, has no power. I mean, if youwant a house, I can't tell you what kind of house youre goingto live in, Im only as powerful as an architect, as I am as anadvocate in that sense. I have absolutely no power.

I mean, for example, the Thames Hub project that we createdand we funded was a sincere attempt to say look, wereexposed to all of this in Asia and in these emergingeconomies. Weve seen whats possible, its no big deal toshut down Heathrow and move it over there. I mean Beijingwas easy compared with Hong Kong. With Hong Kong therewas no land, you know, if youre in Singapore and you want tobuild a building, youve got no land, you have to buy landfrom somewhere else and bring it and dump it in the sea tocreate a building site. So Hong Kong was epic compared with

Beijing, and it just shut down one airport and overnightmoved it to the its not a big deal. So here we are saying,you know, look, we share this experience, there is animportant debate going on it wasnt to invite criticism butgreat, I mean, if its added to the debate.

Razia Iqbal: Lets move onto the third area where it might be said thatyouve made an indelible mark in re-imaging and revivinghistoric buildings. A great example, of course, is theReichstag in Berlin. When Germany reunified and theparliament returned to Berlin, you had the job of recreatingthe parliament building. You did this with a symbolically

significant glass dome, which as well as funnelling light intothe chamber, made the proceedings there seem moretransparent. This idea of inserting sleek, modern additionsinto older structures comes up time and again, but your plansin New York for the redesigning of the New York PublicLibrary has come up against a certain amount of resistance,and I wondered whether you could just say something aboutwhether you think that demonstrates a change in attitudestowards the redesigning of historic buildings?

Norman Foster: I dont think it marks a change in attitudes, I think that

inevitably on high-profile projects, theres a polemic and youknow, thats good, thats healthy, theres a debate. Inevitably

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sometimes there are a lot of misunderstandings, a lot ofmisinformation. When it was created in the early 1900s, Ithink 1907 or something like that, it was all embracing. It hada research library, the Rose Room, sitting on top of the bookstacks, it had a lending library and it had a childrens library.

And then in 1985 they moved the lending library and theymoved that into a department store which theyd acquired onthe other side of the road, because they needed more space,demand was expanding and at the same time, mindful of thefuture, they managed, very cleverly, to acquire the spaceunder Bryant Park, which is next to the library.

So they came up with this very interesting idea of, first of allthey were concerned as trustees of the library for the safeguarding of the Rose Reading Room, which sits on top ofbook stacks, which are unprotected. So if there was a fire,theres no protection, they wouldnt be closed today, the

whole building would collapse and the Rose Reading Room.Also, the books, the heart of the library, were deteriorating,so they had this, I think, brilliant strategy of bringing thebuilding back to its roots, closing down the horrible buildingopposite, which is a really nasty old department store Imean no natural light, no views, horrible and putting thebooks under Bryant Park, immediately next to the, in properconditioned space and then creating a new circulating librarywhere the book stacks are. But then there was a lot ofmisunderstanding and the previous director left and there wasa big gap in between before the new director came, so there

was nobody really representing the library. So there was a lotof outpouring about, you know: theyre going to populariseit, have you heard? Theyre going to have a Starbucks in thelibrary.

Razia Iqbal: Well, they said in fact you were going to turn it into aStarbucks.

Norman Foster: Into a Starbucks? I mean where the Starbucks came from,nobody knows. Maybe Starbucks set the rumour going, goodfor trade, you know. The polemic then widened to the factthat these book stacks were of extraordinary historic value.

Razia Iqbal: Do you think though that you are in a position to persuadethose detractors? Those people who are saying that youre?

Norman Foster: I think its about the reality. I mean the reality of the bookstacks: they were a catalogued system. They were bought o"the market. There are millions of them around the UnitedStates. The inventors, Snead, in the 30s, rejected theirinvention and said it was actually dangerous, that the bookstacks should be holding books and not holding up preciousbuildings. So I think theres misunderstanding.

Razia Iqbal: So its not going to be a Starbucks? Just for the record.

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Norman Foster: Eventually I hope youll be able to get a co"ee there, but

Razia Iqbal: This is Dream Builders from the BBC World Service, Im talkingto the architect Norman Foster at the Royal Institute of British

Architects in London. In a moment well be discussing the cityof the future and Normans ideas about the role ofarchitecture in improving society. But now who would like toask a question on what weve just been discussing,reinventing the skyscraper and the airport and historical refit?In the front row, just introduce yourself for us?

Question 3: Yes, Charles Jencks, an old friend of Norman Foster. Norman,way back when you won the Hongkong Shanghai Bank, wehad a dinner, which was most unfortunate, and in it wediscussed the fact that it was the most expensive building inthe world, per square foot, and I know your very strong social

background and your late wife Wendys and I asked you, Isaid, how can you justify, with your great belief in doingthings for the people, this building? And Wendy said, shesaid, well, you know, lots of people will see it and itll beheard around the world, itll be very popular and she thensaid something which I found out is an extraordinary truth.On a Sunday, when the bottom is open, which is usually is,there were about, I would say, 10,000, I may be exaggerating,women, all Filipinos, who were, had no place to go, no publicground and theyve set up their livelihoods and played games.And I have to take my hats o"to someone for allowing that

and building that public ground. Anyway, a great surprise andWendy was right.

Razia Iqbal: Did you know this about this building?

Norman Foster: I did know about the whole Filipino thing, yes. I mean I thinkits an extraordinary phenomenon, for one day a week itstheir territory, its their home. First of all, it was the feng shuiman who talked about the way that you enter a building andthe spirits and the energy and the way that it should flow, andId forgotten all that and I remember giving a talk on theproject, when it was being designed, in Paris, and discovering

the feng shui mans sketch, having completely forgottenabout it, and the decision to lift the whole building above theground, so you created a public space which was an extensionof the park opposite. It was all about giving something backto the city. The interaction between the private bank and thecity and creating a communal good.

Razia Iqbal: Underneath the building?

Norman Foster: Underneath the building. So you would have an extension ofthe park under the building, flowing under the building, and

then escalators would take you up to the banking hall, so itwould be the first banking hall that wasnt on the ground

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floor. So it was the interaction between the building and thecity and this whole thing about public space andinfrastructure, and I think that that is a very, very strongtheme in our work.

Question 4:

Hi, Im Angela Brady, President of the RIBA. When youreworking overseas, particularly say in the Middle East,everybody seems to want a Norman Foster building and thereis the identity that architecture today should be tall glassbuildings, and its the race for height. If you come across aclient who says I want you to build me the tallest buildinghere in this desert and I will pay you well for it, whats yourreaction to that?

Norman Foster: I think youd consider every approach on its own merit and ifit was such an obvious stupidity to do a tall building all inisolation, I think youd do everything in your power to try to

bring some common sense to bear and to demonstrate that ifthis person wants to make a statement with an image, thenits not necessarily how tall it is. You can be the tallest now,but in the future question mark. So I think you would useyour power of advocacy, and if that person really wanted todo a total and utter stupidity, I mean you wouldnt want to bea party to it, because in the end youre associated with it forgood and for bad.

Razia Iqbal: Well lets talk about Masdar City. Its an extraordinaryproposition, its a car-less solar powered carbon neutral city

and its something you are actually building in the hot desertclimate of Abu Dhabi. Just briefly tell us how the city will workand how people will get around?

Norman Foster: Weve become used to the idea that you can take an o#cetower and in an age of cheap energy you can just throwcooling and heating at it and you can put that buildinganywhere in the world. That gives, I think, a very, very badinterpretation of globalisation. I think what weve had to dothrough very intensive research is to say before you couldthrow a switch, before there were air conditioners, I meanhow did these extraordinary communities create settlements

in a hostile environment, whether its an igloo in the frozenwastes, whether its alpine buildings on the top of mountainsin sort of 30 degrees below, or if its boiling hot in the desert.How did they, before they could throw a switch? So, learningfrom that, and applying that with modern technology, wewere able to create buildings from those historic lessons.Also, freed from the demands of the car, by putting the car ata lower level, whether its an electric robotic vehicle orwhether its a clean traditional vehicle, going the way that carsare going now.

So weve been able to demonstrate that simply by the powerof the thumb, nothing else, this very energy-intensive

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building, because its a research laboratory, its 24-hours, Ican't think of a more energy intensive building than aresearch laboratory. Because the Masdar Institute is aboutresearch into renewable energy and itself, is an experiment.So the amount of energy that we have to inject to get the

standards were accustomed to is significantly less, becausewere working with nature. Now, that philosophy, of course,has produced very intimate spaces, quite narrow streets, withshading because your orientation, thick walls, high insulation,grillages that will modify the light, so there are not largeareas of glass. In a way it rejects a lot of the things that weassociate with modern architecture, so its learning afresh.

Of course, if you were to apply that philosophy in anotherclimate, say in Siberia, you would be designing to welcomethe sun the sun would be your friend. So you then start tosee the potential for global architecture which is truly of the

place, because its generated in the first instance by theclimate and also by the customs, so that your energy top up isrelatively small compared with a conventional building, thenyou can start to economically apply photovoltaics and fuelcells and other devices.

Razia Iqbal: Do you think its possible to spot a Norman Foster buildingbecause of its predilection for diamond shapes or diagridtriangulation, as you called it?

Norman Foster: I think you should ask Ben Johnson and

Razia Iqbal: Well no, Im asking you, because hes not up here and youare. You know, the domes, the windows, the, in the case ofthe Hearst Tower in New York, even your walls have thesediamond shapes. How important to you is it that a Fosterbuilding can be identified as such?

Norman Foster: When youre designing youre not really thinking of thosethings and it is absolutely true that this does taketriangulation and a lot of the economies that follow from that,so theres 20% less steel as a result of that geometry, and itshighly appropriate for that building. But its not necessarily

appropriate for other buildings.

Razia Iqbal: The Hearst Tower in New York youre talking about, yeah?

Norman Foster: Yes. And I think if you look at the whole range of projects, thematerials can go from timber to steel to glass to stone, its apretty varied. I mean we were having a design session thisafternoon, a kind of team session on a project, a roof, and somaybe this roof should be carbon fibre we havent done acarbon fibre structure yet. It would be supported on glass,using glass structurally for the first time. So if, when you see

a building that weve produced and you feel that there issomething there in terms of its personality, then I think thats

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testimony to the way that we work, and the way we apply theprinciples which weve developed over time.

Razia Iqbal: Youve designed an extraordinary number of buildings, do

you know how many?

Norman Foster: Well, we had this conversation earlier and I think itsapproaching 300. But I think also the value that we place onviews, on natural light, on the freshness, the environment ofthe building, the way that the building will engage in a city, inthe way that we were talking about. The more I think about itand I havent thought about it, but you start to make merealise that there are a set of design principles, which indi"erent ways permeate very, very di"erent kinds ofbuildings. Whether its a tiny building in a rural setting, orwhether its something in the middle of a city, there arecommon denominators, yes.

Razia Iqbal: So youve designed more than 300 buildings?

Norman Foster: No, less than 300.

Razia Iqbal: Less than 300. You survived cancer and a heart attack, youregularly do cycle marathons, cross country skiing and this isin your mid to late 70s. It doesnt look as though NormanFoster has any desire to slow down. I want to ask you toreflect on what drives you, what makes you so determined?

Norman Foster: Ive never really thought about it, I mean I

Razia Iqbal: Really?

Norman Foster: Well I have an incredible wife. I have great children and twoextraordinary young children.

Razia Iqbal: Is your success hard won, do you think? Do you regard yoursuccess as having been very hard won?

Norman Foster: I think I work hard, yes. I think I always have. But I think Ivebeen very fortunate to have extraordinary individuals around

me. I think Im essentially a shy person, but I enjoy engagingwith people on things that I am passionate about. It could bewith trainers and cross-country ski fanatics, it could be withcycling freaks, it could be with artists and I think I getpleasure out of challenges.

Razia Iqbal: This is Dream Builders from the BBC World Service. Ive beentalking to the architect Norman Foster at the Royal Institute ofBritish Architects here in London. Weve been discussingairports, skyscrapers, historical buildings and sustainabilityand many of the great buildings Norman Foster has designed.

Who would now like to ask Lord Foster a question on anythingat all? Thank you.

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Question 5: How are you able to bridge the gap between culturalinfluences and contextual dilemma? Because looking at someof your projects, like the markets project in Abu Dhabi, andone of your latest projects in Morocco, Marrakech, it tends to

be a more or less like cultural influences on this project andhow are you able to bridge that with modernity as an idea inarchitecture?

Norman Foster: Its very, very di#cult to generalise. All I would say is that I dosee all kinds of benefits from globalisation. It doesntnecessarily mean that everything is going to be the sameeverywhere, that working with the elements and nature andthe local traditions, that are the possibilities for anarchitecture of place. And then, if you could bringglobalisation to address the big issues of 25% of the planetnot having electricity and power, and the relationship of that

to life expectancy, to liberalisation, to eradicating violenceand wars, theres a very, very close relationship betweenpower and so on, and the fact that one third of humanity livesin slums and thats 40% without a water closet. So ifglobalisation is about levelling that situation, then great forglobalisation.

Razia Iqbal: Weve got time for one more question, the gentleman at theback there?

Question 6: I understand that theres no sure formula for success, but

perhaps a sure formula for failure is to try and pleaseeveryone. So my question for you is how, in your career, fromNorman the architect to Lord Foster the architect, have youever dealt with the situation where your opinion might havestood in the way of you making the right decision?

Norman Foster: I think that there have probably been times when ourconviction has gone against us, because its not beensomething thats perhaps found favour with somebody who iscommissioning a building. But I think that in the

Razia Iqbal: I think hes asking you if youve ever made a mistake?

Norman Foster: My god, more than I could count, yes.

Razia Iqbal: But, we are going to have to draw this to a close. Its been ahugely enjoyable experience. Weve discussed the Gherkin inLondon, Beijing Airport, New Yorks Public Library, reinventingskyscrapers, reimagining historic buildings and so much morebesides. Please now all of you join me in a warm thank you toLord Foster.

Norman Foster: Thank you, thank you.

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